Prodigal Son
by Ladyhawke 620 - airwolf addict
Summary: Dom has already lost one son, can he bear to lose another?


Disclaimer - Story contains original characters from the series Airwolf by Donald Belisarius. They all belong to him and Universal, they just hold a too large a piece of my heart. No copyright infringement is intended and I make no profit from this piece. Story is written by Ladyhawke 620.

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><p><em>To all of those who have ever lost their way, and to all of those who choose to put themselves in harm's way for the rest of us, happy belated Fourth of July.<em>

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><p>"<strong>Prodigal Son"<strong>

Frowning, Dom stared down at the paper in front of him. Truth be known, he was no closer to balancing the books of Santini Air than when he'd started an hour ago.

His head hurt. His heart hurt. And quite frankly, it wasn't anything he hadn't asked for.

He glanced at the photo on the metal desk of Alan and Jane Hawke and the boys only a few years ago. Laughing and smiling, it seemed a lifetime ago, maybe two.

_Alan had asked him only that night to be the boys godfather._

Rubbing a weary thumb across the smudged glass, Dom wondered if even then Alan'd had a foreboding of what was to come.

He'd agreed, of course. Despite the fear and the misgivings that'd abruptly clogged his throat. The loss of Sally Anne to her mother had still been fresh, been raw, and yeah, perhaps on some level he'd wondered if Alan hadn't been trying to soothe his battered soul.

For one awful moment he'd wondered, doubted, should the worst ever come to the worst he could do it. After all, his parenting record wasn't exactly stellar, the whole situation with Sally Anne and her mother had proved that.

And then, standing there, Alan's expectant gaze matching his, he'd known there was no way he could not do it. Come hell or high water, somehow he'd manage.

Reaching out, he'd shook his best friend's hand, wondering at the sudden sense of family, of belonging that'd come with it.

_Who could've known less than a month later Alan and Jane would be dead – drowned in a boating accident that'd nearly claimed the boys as well?_

Unthinkingly, he'd responded when he'd gotten Saint John's call over the radio, fear clogging his own heart when he'd gotten the sixteen year old's teeth chattering, choked voice call.

His only concern had been not getting there fast enough. Gone were any doubts about how he might or might not have failed Sally Anne, he'd just known he had to get to the boys, to do his best to see if Alan and Jane could be found, saved.

Slamming into the Hawke's family, cabin chest heaving, heart pounding, he'd known the instant he'd seen the look on Saint John's face he was too late. There'd be no saving his friend this time, no last minute rescue. If the raging storm that'd battered the jet ranger all the way from Van Nuys hadn't told him and the heaving waves of the lake below hadn't convinced him, one look at the boys faces would've.

Dripping water, Saint John looked like the world had ended.

String had simply looked ...lost. Completely and irrevocably lost.

Teeth chattering, blondish-brown hair plastered to his head, a puddle the size of Niagara in the living room floor, it was obvious the older boy had done his best.

_It was also obvious it hadn't been nearly enough._

To this day, Dom remembered the gut wrenching feeling that'd nearly slammed him to the ground there. The feeling the world and everything in it he'd ever known, ever counted on was gone. His tears had been as real as theirs that day.

He'd had chosen to overlook the two glasses of Jane's best crystal half-full of scotch on the living room table. He hadn't had the heart to criticize. If anyone had ever needed a drink, it'd been a day for it. He'd seen less sink grown men, much less two half-grown children such as these.

And while he knew Jane wouldn't have approved of it, he'd never mentioned it as he bundled the boys up and made the calls that had to be made.

In that instant of decision the bond had been made. He'd never looked back. Family – what was it anyway? Blood?

His parents had disowned him when he'd announced his intentions to fight in the Pacific theater and Korea. The war they'd claimed could never touch them, had taken them both by the time he made it home.

He hadn't seen his brother in years. Wasn't sure he'd even know him if he passed him on the street.

Truth be known, he and Alan had been more like brothers than his own.

From day one they'd eat, breathed and slept the same thing – flying. And after that first time Alan'd pulled his butt out of that Messerschmidt attack, he'd never questioned the fact the other man had his back – and he had his. That was just the way it was.

And it hadn't changed when the war was over and they'd gone home. Oh sure, they'd gone their separate ways, lived their separate lives, but they were brothers in the way that only war and death could forge you.

To the end.

Which was why when his nearly defunct marriage had finally fallen apart and all he'd wanted to do was crawl under a rock and drink himself to death, he'd come home to Van Nuys.

Didn't matter he'd never seen the place, it was home. Where his family was – Alan and Jane and their boys, whom he'd loved like his own even if they weren't.

Besides which, Alan and Jane would've kicked his butt if he'd gone anywhere else.

It was all that'd kept him going the first year.

Frowning, he ran a creased thumb over the photo remembering the long days, the even longer hours, but the love and the laughter Alan and Jane had threaded through it all.

He only wondered what they'd say if they could only see them now.

Saint John was gone. The tow-headed youngster who was only beginning to be a man. Gone long enough for the Army's MIA to be presumed a KIA. The Army'd given up hope. He didn't have to be told that. The footlocker that'd arrived home months ago was proof of what they thought.

He swallowed down a shuddering sigh. He still prayed for his boy, but he knew the odds. He knew the odds all too well.

And now String was missing. Sixteen hours missing. Not impossible, but a lifetime to a wounded or hurt man down in the jungle and being hunted, unable to tell friend from foe. He raked a weary hand through his greying hair, standing it on end.

And the ground was a whole different battleground than the air. He knew that all too well, having spent some time in a prisoner of war camp of his own in Korea. He was well acquainted with the torture one man could enjoy inflicting on another.

Not for the first time he cursed that godforsaken war halfway around the world.

Wiping back tears, he glanced up at the clock on the wall for the hundredth time, wondering where his boy was, if String was okay...

_...if he was even still alive_. Worry churned his gut.

He'd skimmed enough from String's infrequent letters home over the past months that the constant not knowing, the watching his friends die was taking a toll.

And losing Saint John had turned the tide against him.

Unlike his older brother who'd always had the ability to move on, to slough things off, String took everything to heart. _He always had. _

_And he'd taken the guilt of losing Saint John the most to heart._

He just prayed the guilt hadn't caused him to take a risk he shouldn't, bite off a fight he couldn't win.

_Didn't want to win._

The insidious words slid across Dom's thoughts, his mind voicing what his lips were afraid to say. Frantically, he shoved the thoughts away, fearful to even think them, sacrilege even in his own mind.

But it was hard not to miss the desperation, the darkness that'd gripped the boy since Saint John had been gone. It was clear String blamed himself. He just prayed it hadn't caused the boy to do something stupid. Something that might cost him his life.

His thumb skimmed the picture, his thoughts idly wandering, wondering where the carefree kid he'd first known had gone.

String hadn't had a lot of friends in school after Alan and Jane had died, but the ones he'd had he'd held onto with both hands. There were times it'd gotten him into more than his fair share of trouble. And the same dogged loyalty that'd had him backing his childhood friend Mike all those years ago would have him going after Saint John now.

Difference was, unlike the cracked ribs and the black eyes it'd gotten him back then, it was likely to get him killed now.

He'd taken on riskier missions, higher and higher risk rescues. Dom didn't have to be told he was grasping at straws trying to find his brother. Taking chances he shouldn't.

And that was exactly what had led to this latest situation.

Oh, he might get the job done. That ruthless Hawke determination would carry him through. But at what price?

And at what point did the price simply become too much to pay?

Raking his hand through greying hair, Dom shoved to his feet, pacing the suddenly too small room. Where was String anyway? Why the hang couldn't they find his boy?

Sharp and brittle the phone suddenly rang out, sending him lunging across the office.

"Yes, hello?" the words tumbling out before he could form coherent thought. "Santini Air," he added as a fumbling response.

"Dominic Santini?" the voice on the other end of the line hesitated, clearly unsure they'd reached the right number.

"Yes," he growled, perhaps a little too gruffly, all too aware the number of people calling here at Santini Air at this hour of the morning was limited.

_String. And maybe an army Chaplin, he couldn't even remember the last time he'd been home lately... _He fought the closing sensation in his throat. "Yes?" he whispered. He gripped the phone a little tighter, the thick fingers of his other hand grasping the chair next to him.

"Mr. Santini, this is Lt. Richards. I'm serving here as the Chaplin for the 103rd . I'm calling about your ..." the man hesitated, his throat clearing, papaers rustling as he checked to be clear, "son."

Dominic swallowed. It wasn't the first time the different last names had created confusion. He could only pray it wouldn't be the last.

"You found him?" he whispered, trying to ignore the rushing, pounding sound of his own heart in his ears.

"Search and rescue found the helicopter this morning – couple hours ago. It went down in heavy ground fire."

The succinct words did nothing to erase the pain.

Wincing, Dom gripped the seat in front of him, trying not to fall down, feeling sick – the picture in his mind's eye providing all too well the image of a spinning, crashing Huey plummeting to earth rotors thwacking the ground, ripping itself to shreds.

Sometimes, there clearly was such a thing as knowing too much for your own good. He hauled in a shuddering breath. "He alive?" he whispered.

"Yes, sir," the man said quietly, soberly. "Him and three others. They're crediting him with saving them. They think he'll make it. So far as I can tell, it was a small miracle anyone survived. The crash was pretty ugly."

Dom felt as much as heard the quaver in the younger man's voice, knew beyond a doubt he'd been there, had seen the bleeding and the dying.

_Yeah, he bet it was..._

Suddenly bone weary, he dropped into the chair beside him, clinging to the only words making it through the pounding fog in his head.

"He'll make it?" he whispered, broad shoulders shaking.

There was a small pause as the Lt. Considered the question, knowing in reality Hawke shouldn't have survived the crash - period.

_Eight others hadn't._

His fingers slid across the cross in his hands, remembering all too well the crash scene from that morning – the blackened and partially burned hulk of the Huey smashed and shattered against the ground. The bodies, the blood, the smell of death in the air.

_And despite it all, four survivors..._

Maybe Hawke shouldn't have made it, but he had. And he for one, was in the business of believing in miracles, no matter how tattered they came.

"Yes, sir," he finally spoke. "I believe so." He put the cross down. "Is there anything you'd have me tell him?"

Slumped at the desk forehead buried against his palm, the Italian pilot swallowed hard, torn between a natural reticence to say to a stranger what he longed to say to his son, and the knowledge the opportunity might not come again.

"Sir?" Static crackled on the line, threatening to sever it.

And in that heartbeat the decision was made. "Tell him I love him," Dom said. "And for Pete's sake, keep his head down."


End file.
